


Forged of Fire and Water

by JU_Zumester



Category: V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JU_Zumester/pseuds/JU_Zumester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He, from the flames. She, from the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forged of Fire and Water

**Author's Note:**

> Optional Soundtrack:  
> [ Comptine d'Un Autre Été - Die fabelhafte Welt der Amélie ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-1u8xvk54)
> 
> [Disclaimer: This fanwork may or may not contain spoilers and is subject to editing and improvement. Friendly feedback is appreciated.]

It was in a halo of misery, flames licking at his back, heat billowing around his face, that he was born. Out of the ashes of an old life--memories shed away like layers of healthy skin, distinctions born like third degree burns--a new one was forged. One that had no need for emotions like fear. One that was not influenced by so-called divine impositions. Governmental law, forced upon him like so many chains, from within so many walls.

The new man that was born was undoubtedly stronger than the old one. He was the type of man that was not weighed down by lies and threats. He was the type of man who put all of his energy into the _here_ and the _now_. Into the _self_.

His name was V.

She grew up in a world of change and confusion, neutered of her chance to pick her side as her mother was struck down and black bagged by strange men, her father arrested and executed by Norsefire for his liberal beliefs. Numbed to the pain of loss, and yet afraid. So very, very afraid. Afraid of the government. Afraid of change. Afraid of a verbose vigilante in all-stygian attire.

It was in the clammy darkness of a concrete cell, with flimsy toilet paper clutched between shaking fingers, that she began to change. The culmination of years of imposed terror, of old voices whispered from the lips of the deceased, telling her what to do and finding no purchase in her here-one-minute-gone-the-next mind. The climax of a lifetime of denial and a thousand lifetimes of grief. Standing on the roof of an unnamed building, nestled into some unknown cranny of England, with sheets of rain pouring down onto her thin frame, drenching her to the bone.

And the new woman was both more broken, and more resilient than the old one. This new woman had been given the gift of a life without fear, and as her crippled mind found new ways to feel old comforts like “familiarity” and “warmth” and, yes, even “love”, she grew. Grew stronger, and stronger, and stronger.

Her name was Evey, and she taught the man, V, something that he would never have known, had he not decided to stop and stand between a would-be prostitute and a few entitled government officers. Something that he never would have known if it had not been for the agonizing months between her escape from his imaginary prison and _the eve of the 5th_.

Forged of fire and water, they stand. And it’s ideas that hold them on their feet, but it’s people that made them, people that will follow in their footsteps, and people that they are. It's a person, in the end, that she remembers. In tandem with the ideas--more bulletproof than his body ever was.

 

Or so he thinks, watching her throw her hands into the air, laugh at the sky and breathe. Truly breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if this is really a part of the graphic novel, but I really like the fact that, in the movie, Evey's most pivotal moment takes place in the rain, and V's takes place in a bath of fire. I wanted to write a piece that expanded upon that.


End file.
